NZ Cricket won't rule out franchise T20 competition

By Alex Powell

While there are no plans in the immediate future New Zealand Cricket won’t rule out the prospect of a franchise-based Twenty20 competition.

As cricket’s landscape continues to shift rapidly, New Zealand is the only major nation that does not make use of a franchise structure.

Instead, the domestic Super Smash competition relies on New Zealand’s six major associations: Auckland, Northern Districts, Wellington, Central Districts, Canterbury and Otago.

Elsewhere, other nations make use of T20 franchises, often backed by private money, as a means of bringing overseas talent to play in front of a local fanbase.

For New Zealand Cricket, the pros and cons go both ways.

While opting to keep the Super Smash, and in particular the men’s competition as one for locals only, the Black Caps have enjoyed a golden era.

In that time, New Zealand held the world No 1 ranking and reached tournament finals in all three formats, including winning the inaugural World Test Championship in 2021. However, by staying away from a private equity-backed competition, players can earn more playing outside of New Zealand.

This year, five frontline Black Caps – including Kane Williamson – have opted not to sign central contracts to explore other options overseas.

Williamson and Devon Conway have signed casual playing agreements, which leaves them contracted for certain periods.

Both players will instead conclude the New Zealand summer playing in South Africa’s SA20 competition, where their short-term deals are understood to be worth more than their previous central contracts.

Adam Milne, Lockie Ferguson and Finn Allen hold no national contract whatsoever and are not guaranteed to be available for the national side.

That’s in addition to the likes of Trent Boult and Martin Guptill, who were released from central contracts, and Colin de Grandhomme, who retired altogether for franchise opportunities.

Those moves, in combination with other events in the world game, show that cricket is moving to a point that administrators and fans alike have not seen and cannot predict.

But for New Zealand Cricket general manager of high-performance Bryan Stronach, nothing is off the table in terms of where the future of the sport in Aotearoa might lie, including a franchise model.

“You’d never say never,” he told the Herald. “At the moment, from my understanding, the commercials might not weigh up with how small we are as a market and so forth.

“But the way cricket is changing and adapting so quickly, you can’t take anything off the table.

“One of the biggest things we have to do to keep competing is keep being flexible in how we’re addressing things.

“I don’t know what that is next year, the world changes so quickly. We’ve got to be open to everything because this world changes so quickly.”

Like New Zealand, Australia is also in a similar position. Their Big Bash League is also run by the national organisation, without the influence of private money.

But both countries are now vulnerable, as they clash with the SA20 and the UAE’s International League T20 – both of which are backed by Indian private equity.

In Australia’s case, the Big Bash League runs concurrently with its test summer and leaves its premier franchise-based competition bereft of its best international players.

As seen in competitions like the NRL and Super Rugby Pacific, one solution could be a joint tournament, where New Zealand sides enter into the existing Big Bash franchise model.

New Zealand Cricket has previously communicated to the Herald that it does not want to see such a system in place, fearing for the development of future generations of Black Caps and White Ferns.

And while Stronach suggests that position might be softening, the ramifications of such a drastic switch from what’s already in place will always be taken into consideration.

“It’s one of the things we have to be open to,” he continued. “But [we] also understand the impact it has if we do make those decisions on the development of our athletes, the commercials, the fan engagement in all those areas we have to consider when we’d make a move like that.

“We have to continually go back to those things around any decision we make and ask what impact it would have.”

For now, both competitions will need to coexist, even if an overlapping player pool is in effect.

This week, the pair of Ish Sodhi and Mark Chapman both declared for the Big Bash League’s draft, despite holding central contracts.

From New Zealand Cricket’s point of view, the issue is a win-win. Both players are only in the mix for the opening three matches if drafted at all, before returning to New Zealand.

As part of their central contracts, Sodhi and Chapman will need to be available for the Super Smash, as well as Black Caps home internationals over the coming summer.

And with that in mind, Stronach says New Zealand Cricket has no objections to players seeking those short-term deals, provided players meet their contractual obligations.

“We want to try and be as flexible as we can with our contracting system. But also [we need to be] understanding what our priorities are, and not budging on those.

“If there are gaps, we will always be flexible and look at those sorts of things.

“That’s what we see in this gap, they’re not missing any domestic cricket, there’s no international cricket they’d be missing there, and we’re even talking to them around where they’d have rest periods.

“It works out well, in those situations we want to be flexible.”

While Sodhi and Chapman have entered the draft as contracted players, the uncontracted pair of Finn Allen (Perth Scorchers) and Tim Seifert (Melbourne Renegades) have already signed Big Bash League deals.

Furthermore, the likes of Ferguson, Milne, Colin de Grandhomme, Doug Bracewell, Jimmy Neesham and Scott Kuggeleijn – all without central contracts – have declared for the draft.

South African-born Bevan-John Jacobs has also declared for the draft, despite having not played international cricket yet.

This article was first published on nzherald.co.nz and is republished here with permission